Graphic Design Work of 2023
Departed Spirits by Marx Design
Maybe it’s been ‘silly season’ summer; maybe there’s a lack of risk-taking/imagination/budget; maybe I’m just jaded, but it’s felt as though recent months haven’t exactly seen a wealth of particularly exciting branding and packaging projects. That’s not to say there hasn’t been a steady stream of good work, but I’ve personally not felt hugely ‘wowed’: there’s been work that’s strong,...
National Portrait Gallery by Edit Brand Studio
In June 2023, a giant of British cultural life awoke from a three year slumber. The return of the National Portrait Gallery evokes a joy that is made all the keener when one recalls the troubled time in which it closed its doors: March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold and public life evaporated in the announcement of that...
Entrée by Saint Urbain
More than three years since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, we’re in a strange situation when it comes to all the things that flourished due to lockdown – grocery delivery services like Getir, et al; streaming services that poured literally billions into what once seemed like a never-ending gold-rush of content-consumption; flashy home-centric lifestyle brands like Peloton. Indeed, the...
Loot by Seachange
Where have all the simple playful ideas gone? You know the ones, a bit of wit, spun into a multitude of playful expressions across a number of different touch-points? Design craft has gotten so good over the last few years, but I miss the smile-in-the-mind stuff. Paul Belford’s New Chapter, Seachange’s Think Packaging and Mucho’s Art Walk. They’re not strategic...
Natural History Museum by Pentagram & Nomad
If you grew up in the UK, the Natural History Museum is likely synonymous with two things: the massive blue whale suspended from the ceiling, or the equally large diplodocus skeleton. For many British kids, the museum is a childhood staple – either from school trips, or days out with parents who, rather savvily, combine a widespread fascination among youngsters...
Florentia Village by DNCO
On first hearing, ‘Florentia Village’ is a ridiculous name for a warehouse complex in South Tottenham, as if Hyacinth Bouquet had somehow risen from the grave and gained a seat on the borough council in order to render floridly Italianate a grimy chunk of East London. However, the name does in fact arise from an organic nomenclatural etymology: indicating ‘flourishing’ or...
Fergus by Principal Studio
Organic food brands often land in the same visual territory as many vegan and eco-conscious counterparts – but when did the pursuit of consumer trust become so entwined with muted colour palettes, illustrated veg and rustic textures? There’s nothing inherently problematic with this combination of design elements, yet it has become a tired and overused formula for brands operating in...
Scapegoats by Strategy
‘Landscaping legends’, what a lovely bit of alliteration and a decent bit of positioning by Strategy for Scapegoats, a New Zealand-based landscaping company. From this, a wonderful tapestry of iconography, illustration and words come to life to construct something of a horticultural mise-en-scène of craft and creativity for Scapegoats duo Kylie and Reuben and their team, which plays out across vehicle...
ZVYK by .Oddity Studio
Most people agree that demarcations like ‘millennial’, ‘Gen Z’ and ‘Gen X’ are redundant – little more than age brackets created for the convenience of marketing teams which have become shorthand for a series of traits we’re expected to believe somehow define an entire generation. It’s curious, then, that for every diatribe against such groupings there’s at least ten more...
Future Observatory by SPIN Studio
SPIN Studio continues its working relationship with the Design Museum (after branding its Waste Age exhibition in 2021 and Wim Crouwel’s first UK retrospective in 2011) by putting its inimitable spin (this won’t happen again, I promise) on Future Observatory, the museum’s ‘national research programme for the green transition’. Perhaps more so than any other studio working today, SPIN has...
Food Nation by Seachange
It’s about time plant-based brands found their sense of humour. Having been a vegan for 17 years now, I can safely say that veggie/vegan brands have historically been tiresomely dull – and until recently, they’ve been allowed to be. But with the recent years’ boom in all things ‘plant based’, simply existing because there’s no other type of soy milk...
Sucre by DutchScot
It’s always satisfying to see smart, bold new identity designs for a household name brand, often by one of the big name studios: things like the still-hyped 2021 JKR Burger King rebrand; Collins’ Girl Scouts revamp in 2022; Springetts’ fresh look for Ryvita that same year, which makes the much-maligned crispbread seem a lot more palatable. And while such projects...